Movies. Screen gems.

Fine `Organizer' Has Been Gone Too Long

November 12, 1999|By Michael Wilmington, Tribune Movie Critic.

Sometimes a worthy film simply disappears from view: the unfortunate fate of "The Organizer," an excellent period drama of labor strife. Set in Turin, during a textile factory strike in the late 1800s, this film -- little seen since 1964 -- should not have been forgotten. It has a warm epic quality, beautiful black and white cinematography and a tremendous ensemble cast -- including Renato Salvatori, Annie Girardot and Bernard Blier. Most unforgettably, it has Marcello Mastroianni in one of the finest performances of his career.

"La Notte" is the quintessential Antonioni film. Set in Milan, it's the drama of an affluent married couple, with Mastroianni as a jaded writer, Jeanne Moreau as his discontented wife, Bernhard Wicki as his dying friend and Monica Vitti as a nymphomaniac (this sentence as published has been corrected in this text).

FOR THE RECORD - This story contains corrected material.Marcello Mastroianni's character was misidentified in the published story.

"The Organizer" and "La Notte," shown in newly struck 35mm prints, are among 13 films screening on the second week of the month-long Cinecitta retrospective "The Stuff That Dreams are Made Of: The Films of Marcello Mastroianni." See below for more reviews.

- "Cutting It Short" (Jiri Menzel; 1980). Light and beguiling, Menzel's country idyll is set in the early 20th Century and based on another novel by Bohumil Hrabal, the writer of Menzel's most famous film "Closely Watched Trains." It's the delicate but bawdy tale of a brewery manager's lovely wife. (Czech, subtitled.) 6 p.m., The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Columbus Drive at Jackson Boulevard; 312-443-3737 (also 4:15 p.m., Sunday)

- "Larks on a String" (star) (star) (star) 1/2 (Jiri Menzel; 1969). Menzel's long-censored 1969 political comedy, based on another Bohumil Hrabal story, follows the adventures of a motley but cheerful group of political dissidents assigned to work on a scrap heap. The punishment becomes more pleasant than the judges intended; the film, finally released in 1990, won that year's Berlin Festival Grand Prize. (Czech, subtitled.) 7:45 p.m., Film Center..

SATURDAY

- "Torn Curtain" (star) (star) (star) 1/2 (Alfred Hitchcock; 1966). Hitchcock's attempt (during the James Bond heyday) to revisit his old specialty, the spy-chase thriller, foundered on star casting: Paul Newman and Julie Andrews were uncomfortable in their roles as a seemingly disloyal American scientist defecting to the USSR and his troubled wife. But there are great scenes, especially the gruesomely protracted farmhouse murder of Soviet guard Gromek (Wolfgang Kieling). 11:30 a.m., Music Box (also 11:30 a.m. Sunday)

- "Sciopio the African" (star) (star) (star) (Luigi Magni; 1971). Set in ancient Rome, this suave comedy has Mastroianni as a linguistic rebel, his brother Ruggero in the title role and Vittorio Gassmann as Cato the censor. (Italian, subtitled.) 4:30 & 8:45 p.m., Facets

- " What Time Is It" (star)(star)(star) 1/2 (Ettore Scola; 1989). Compassionate drama of a father and son (Marcello Mastroianni and Massimo Troisi, writer-star of "The Postman") reunited by the grandfather's watch. (Italian, subtitled.) 3:30 & 7:45 p.m., Facets